Letters

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES DO THE EDITORS FORWARD LETTERS FROM READERS TO OTHER PERSONS NOR DO THEY ANSWER CORRESPONDENCE MAKING SUCH REQUESTS.

Pueri:

Your Editorial (March, 1959) was very fine. There is frigidus anguis latet in herba, but it's the ennui and ineptness of the group. I'd like to put both Mr. S., of East Orange, New Jersey, and Mr. M., of Philadelphia (Letters, March, 1959) in a wine press, and turn till they cry, "Conscious!" Mr. S. equates adulterers with sodomites. Mr. M., by his choice of Bible quotes, precludes homosexual love from being more than a "sin" to be tolerated.

The one may consider himself a sinner, the other an adulterer, if he likes. My way of love is joy and expression, but my way is not theirs. Mr. E.

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Dear Mr. Kepner:

In your review of the life of Roger Casement (March, 1959) you state, "It was only when he came to America to raise funds for Irish Home rule . . ." This statement of his "treason" is entirely different from other accounts. Casement was tried for treason because he went to Germany during World War I to raise support for an Irish revolt against Britain. This you do not mention in your account. Why?

A very fair discussion of the whole Irish question is found in Leonard Patrick O'Connor Wibberley's, The Trouble With the Irish (New York, 1956). You should read this book, particularly Wibberley's comparison of Casement with the even more tragic fate of Padraic Pearse.

Frankly, while I think the British (to mix a metephor) used two stones, treason and homosexuality, to hang one bird, I also think that Casement showed much the same lack of foresight and good sense as did Oscar Wilde, when the latter instituted libel proceedings against the father of Alfred Douglas. Mr. W. CLEVELAND, OHIO

Dear Editor:

For some reason or other I found myself deeply touched by the letter of Mr. E., Bombay, India (February, 1958). How one longs to convey certain things to such an individual. How can it be done? I wonder.

I would like to say to Mr. E.-in union or out of it, you cannot belong to anyone but yourself. I believe that it is this very wanting to "belong" that paradoxically wrecks the very thing it seeks to create. Have you ever considered the burden that wanting to belong to someone else places upon that person? As for sex for the mere sex of it, don't be too quick to write it off disparagingly. It bears a closer relationship to the "loftier"' aspects of love than you might suppose.

The mere sex of it'' can well be the first step towards the rest of it, that union so devoutly desired, for love, regardless of the need for it within ourselves, is never that need; but the giving of it-the giving of it that fulfills the need for it. I am not advocating promiscuity, but the facts of life are the facts of life, regardless of how we wish to construe, or misconstrue them.

Are you absolutely sure true union is what you want? Friend, it cuts deep across all boundaries-it cuts the very heart of being, but if you have thought on it, and if it is what you truly desire-then, I truly believe that it will come to you, when you are ready for it. And it will shatter you, with every preconceived notion you have had of it and of yourself. And it will give birth to a new. "you," that will never again fear loneliness or the "gay hell"-a "you" that will understand.

Gentlemen:

Mr. P.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

I want to thank you for what you are doing in our interest and for your heroic courage in a hostile world. As a newcomer to this country I have to keep myself in the background so long as the laws of U. S. are persecuting us. I enjoy the friendship of many heterosexuals and have no difficulties in comradeship. I cannot understand that some of us are complaining about solitude and loneliness. For a real friendship one has to pay the price for it. It is up to the individual. Mr. L.

Dear ONE:

BUFFALO, NEW YORK

I could almost write a love letter to you for so many of the things I have found within your covers. When I found no answers to give the world, ONE said it for me. When petty people sought to defeat me, ONE supplied more answers. So it has been a friendship-an affair with a cold, true, little magazine.

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